Milena Canonero OMRI
Canonero at the2025 Locarno Film Festival
Born	Turin, Italy
Occupations	Costume designer production designer film producer
Years active	1971–present
Spouse	Marshall Bell ​ (m. 1980)​

Milena CanoneroOMRI (born 13 July 1949) is an Italiancostume designer. She has received numerous accolades, including fourAcademy Awards, threeBAFTA Awards, and twoCostume Designers Guild Awards. She was honored with theCDG Career Achievement Award in 2001 and theHonorary Golden Bear in 2017.

Canonero is best known for her collaborations with directorsStanley Kubrick,Francis Ford Coppola, andWes Anderson. She has received nine nominations for theAcademy Award for Best Costume Design and has won four times forBarry Lyndon (1975),Chariots of Fire (1981),Marie Antoinette (2006), andThe Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).

Canonero was born inTurin, Italy. She attended university inGenoa, studying fashion, period design, and art history before moving to England in the late 1960s.^[1][2] She designed for friends' London boutiques and began assisting in commercials, meeting many filmmakers along the way.^[3] By chance, Canonero was also invited to watchStanley Kubrick shoot parts of the landmark2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and the director asked her to collaborate with him on his next feature film.^[3]

Canonero received her first major screen credits for designing costumes for Kubrick's dystopian classicA Clockwork Orange (1971), based onAnthony Burgess'novel of the same name. She created an instantly recognizable character's wardrobe that perfectly captures the film's discourse on class, money, and power through provoking aesthetics, which has since become an enduring inspiration for fashion icons and designers.^[4] Kubrick and Canonero continued their collaboration on the epic period dramaBarry Lyndon (1975), based on the1844 novel byWilliam Makepeace Thackeray about social ladder inGeorgian era Britain. She and Swedish costume designerUlla-Britt Söderlund examined original 18th-century attire at London'sVictoria and Albert Museum and copied patterns from the collection to produce authentic-looking film garments. In their designs, the pair also drew inspiration from the period-defining art, including portraits byThomas Gainsborough andJoshua Reynolds, as well as paintings byJean Siméon Chardin andWilliam Hogarth, among others. They also sourced vintage fabrics, laces, and clothing from auction houses and private collections. By combining crafted film pieces with original clothing, the designers achieved unrivaled for the period drama authenticity sought by the director.^[1] Given the grand scale of production, the biggest challenge, however, was Kubrick's innovative decision to lens the film using only daylight or faint, flickering candlelight. Taking that into account, the costumes had to stand out noticeably both in shape and texture.^[2] Canonero and Söderlund won theAcademy Award for Best Costume Design for their exceptional work.^[3] At one point,George Lucas approached her to design costumes for his 1977 landmark space operaStar Wars, an offer she eventually turned down while later considered it to be the biggest lost opportunity of her career.^[3] Canonero worked with Kubrick once again on the cult psychological horrorThe Shining (1980), based onStephen King'snovel of the same name. She won her second Academy Award for another collaboration with directorHugh Hudson, with whom she previously worked on the short film back in the early 1970s. This time they reunited on his iconic sports dramaChariots of Fire (1981), the true story of two British athletes in the1924 Olympics. She superbly interpreted the 1920s English tweeds, blazers, and college garb to the extent of inspiring 1980s fashion trends; such great success led to an offer for Canonero to create a clothing line for men's-wear manufacturer Norman Hilton, for which she received a specialCoty Award.^[3]

Canonero’s next major film wasSydney Pollack'sOut of Africa (1985), based on Danish authorKaren Blixen's autobiographicalmemoir of the same name about her decade-long experiences in colonial Kenya starting just before the outbreak ofWorld War I. Canonero faced a formidable challenge when tasked in a strict three-month term to research, design, and produce hundreds of costumes appropriate for a vast ensemble of characters that includes African natives, white hunters, and European nobility. It took her on an intense journey everywhere, from theNew York Public Library to the various museums and costume houses across England and Italy, and from theBlixen’s home in Denmark to Africa, where she met anthropologistRichard Leakey, who consulted her on less known aspects of African fashion in the 1910s, especially those regarding the indigenous groups.^[5][6]

Beside her well-established screen career, Canonero is known for creating costumes for stage. She frequently collaborated with directorOtto Schenk on his numerous opera productions. Those includeIl trittico (Vienna State Opera, 1979),As You Like It (Salzburg Festival, 1980),Die Fledermaus (Vienna State Opera, 1980),Andrea Chénier (Vienna State Opera, 1981), andArabella (Metropolitan Opera, 1983). Canonero provided the costumes and set design forRoman Polanski's 1999 production ofPeter Shaffer'sAmadeus at Milan'sTeatro Manzoni.^[7] She also worked with directorLuc Bondy on such productions asTosca (Metropolitan Opera, 2009) andHelena (Burgtheater, 2010).

On television, Canonero designed costumes for crime drama seriesMiami Vice in the 1980s.^[8]

In 2001, Canonero received the Career Achievement Award in Film from theCostume Designers Guild. She won her third Oscar forSofia Coppola'sMarie Antoinette (2006).

Canonero received her fourth Academy Award forThe Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), directed byWes Anderson. This marked her third collaboration with the director, as they had previously worked together onThe Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) andThe Darjeeling Limited (2007).^[9]

Canonero is married to actorMarshall Bell.^[10] As of 2025^[update], Canonero is based out of Rome, Italy.^[11]

Academy Awards

BAFTA Awards

• Italy - Grand Cross of theOrder of Merit of the Italian Republic on 21 December 2015.^[60]

• Fabienne Liptay (ed.),Milena Canonero.Film-Konzepte 40 (edition text + kritik, 2015).

• Milena Canonero atIMDb 

• 1946 births
• Living people
• Best Costume Design Academy Award winners
• Best Costume Design BAFTA Award winners
• Costume Designers Guild Career Achievement Award recipients
• David di Donatello winners
• Excellence in Contemporary Film Costume Designers Guild Award winners
• Excellence in Period Film Costume Designers Guild Award winners
• Film people from Turin
• Honorary Golden Bear recipients
• Italian costume designers
• Italian emigrants to the United States
• Italian film producers
• Italian production designers
• Italian women costume designers
• Italian women film producers
• Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
• Nastro d'Argento winners
• Opera designers
• Theatre people from Turin
• Women production designers

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